January 1, 2026 • 40 mins
Jason Fitz and Bucks Reising react live to Oregon shutting out Texas Tech in the Orange Bowl and agree this is not the Playoff we were promised in terms quality of play. The guys wish we’d rid the tradition of neutral sites like the Rose Bowl. Miami is this year’s Cinderella after beating Ohio State.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Missed field goal may leave the window of opportunity open
for Texas Tech. But as we sit right now, Oregon
toppling Texas Tech sixteen to nothing, and it raises a
very real question about rest versus rust because if this
trend continues, if this is our final outcome, I will
remind you every single team so far that it's been
(00:24):
lucky enough to get the first round by and the
College Football Playoff, every team they got the first round
by last year they lost.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
We saw Miami go down.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
And they win their first round matchup, been inn upset,
and now we are watching Oregon beat Texas Tech. So
far over you get the first round by, you lose?
Is the college football Playoff? The problem is the calendar
of the problem. Is it coincidence?
Speaker 3 (00:46):
We'll figure it out.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
He's Buck Rising, I'm Jason fitz hanging out with He's
a bucking Fits takeover on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Buck.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
I don't know what to make of it, Like, look
at the small sample size and I'm trying not to overreact,
but every single team that gets first round by come
out and just gets beat.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
There's got to be something to it.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Why would you put that evil on me today? Indiana's
playing in the Rose Bowl. They haven't played a football
game in twenty days, and you're going to start to
show that way.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's exactly. I mean, of course, why
do you think? What do you think I was gonna
give you sunshine of Roses to start twenty twenty six?
Speaker 3 (01:16):
What are we doing here?
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yes, I would like to feel good about the idea
of my alma mater being actually able to win a
college football playoff game as the number one overall seed
against Alabama because I've been confident about it all day
until or basically all I guess a month for lack
of a better term, since we've last seen Indiana play football.
I'm like, Okay, Alabama, they've got some flaws. This is
(01:39):
a matchup that should I don't think that Indiana had
any business being a touchdown a seven and a half
point favorite in the Rose Bowl over Alabama. But I've
felt pretty good about the situation the whole way through,
and then I watched Miami. I mean, it is, by
point spread and by margin of victory by the underdog,
the biggest upset of the college football playoff era. What
(02:01):
Miami did to Ohio State last night, and the pick
six put them over the top. Is a beautiful play
by the defender to just snatch that one, read it
the whole way through, snatch it out of the air,
and then just make Julian say and look mortal as
a defensive front the way that they were able to
do the entire basically the entire game. Ohio State rallied
(02:22):
back a little bit in the second half, but never
really threatened. And I am FITZI if we're talking about
is this something that has to be studied in great details?
Should we continue to see such upsets moving forward? As
Texas Tech is clearly trailing as you mentioned, sixteen to
nothing in the I mean we're under five minutes to
play at this point in time in the Orange Bowl.
(02:46):
If this continues throughout the course of today with these
teams that got a first round by looking a little sluggish,
if not outright getting beat, then yes, the calendar absolutely
has to be studied because it no longer becomes an
advantage to have this much of a layoff if you're
going to earn the number one overall seed in this situation.
There's some conversation that We had about this in the
(03:06):
NFL too. They're going to earn that top seed in
that by though you want it to be to your advantage,
it does not seem to be advantageous to have this
long of a layoff for these football teams.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
And it's the length of the layoff that I think
is really jarring, because to your point, in the NFL,
it's one week, right, Sure, some guys might get rested
this week, so maybe you could look at it and say, well,
it's a little longer than that, but you're talking about
basically one week. In the college football landscape you referenced it.
I mean, the Big Ten championship game was what December fifth,
December sixth, so it's been twenty days since there's been anything.
(03:37):
I found myself, and I know how stupid this sounds,
but I found myself sitting on the couch today saying,
are we going to reach a world where college football
coaches try and schedule some sort of glorified practice exhibition
against another team just to try and keep the juices phones,
just to try.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
And keep the energy.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Because every offense, every single offense that we expected something from,
has looked a little out of whack. At the beginning
of every game, even if you go back to the
first round, like Alabama was down seventeen to nothing and
they came back and with that, but it looked like
Alabama was sleepwalking in the very beginning of that game.
We saw some of that Texas a and them looked
(04:13):
like they were a little out of rhythm in the
first game. Now, maybe that's Miami's defense, but then you
get Ohio friend.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
In that game was also outrageous.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
And now we get Ohio State that just looked pathetic offensively.
And we've had a game that I genuinely I sat
down because you know me, everybody knows my Raiders fandom.
If you're listening to Fox Sports Radio, you've figured it
out by now. I was excited to watch Dante more
in this game, just to get more more proof of
who Dante Moore is as a quarterback. And I just
watched this man. Offenses across the board. Now Oregon didn't
(04:44):
have a buy obviously, but offenses across the board are
just so far behind the defenses right now. This was
a what was supposed to be an electric game was
a painful watch and a lot of times I'll look
at it and.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Say, well, great defense. I love great defense. I don't
even know that we were seeing that.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Like the play calling has been super safe other than
fourth down, the way that they're calling the game, the
way it looks. It just I don't know that we
really have seen the best of much of college football
so far. Miami's defense lights out, Oregon's defense has played
lights out today.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
I'm not taking anything away from that. I just am
wondering if.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
We're actually seeing the best representation of each of these
teams in the playoffs so far.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
I mean, we're seeing the best of their defenses, right.
Texas Text defensive line still has come out and been
just a bunch of ass kickers today. They can't score touchdown.
I mean they can, I guess, but that would be
a very difficult thing for a defense to be able
to put up sixteen points to match Oregon at this
point in time. So we are seeing that defensively, and
again the learning curve there or the level of layoff
(05:44):
for an offense that would bring about the kind of rust,
the kind of just disjointedness that we're talking about. We
don't have that on defense.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Right.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
This is something we talk about every year at the
start of the college football season or an NFL season
going to training camp. What do we always say, defense
is always ahead of the offense, right, Just an example
of basically starting a new season for these teams that
got the first round by even though I understand it's
not a new season, it's not new rosters or anything
like that, but this is essentially them trying to kick
(06:12):
it into gear again after having that long layoff and I,
oh my god, that sacked by Oregon.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
God, yeah, oh we are watching.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Maybe you're right, Maybe I need to recalibrate my mindset
on it because both of these defensive lines have played like.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
That quarterback, by the way, it does not look like
he's feeling good after that.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Oh man.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Well, and there was a fumble recovery earlier, a force
fumble on a sack that was recovered by the defensive lineman.
There was a beautiful play that also put a ton
of pressure on Morton's arms. So you know, this game
is just so weird. Because you're right, I will say
you're right. Defense has been great in this game. I'm
also watching an Oregon team that has won the turnover battle.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Four to one. They have four forced turnovers in this game.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
But they're also three for seven on fourth down, like
they've just been going for fourth they've been treating fourth
down like for Wimfy treats cars like just giving them
out to everybody, and they haven't been converting on more
often than not. So it's just a disjointed version. You're right,
Like Oregon's defense, Texas Tech was the noted defense coming
into this, and it felt like Oregon heard that Organ's
(07:15):
defense has played lights out in this game. Texas Tech
defense honestly has played lights out in this game, and
it still feels like it's been a bad football game.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
So just for the audience's context, I haven't seen much
of this football game until just now. I've been at
Titan's practice. The NFL does not take the day off
for New Year's Day, unfortunately, so we were out there
talking to cam Ward and coaches for the final time. Well,
I guess there'd be a practice tomorrow, so we'll talk
to players tomorrow too. But so I'm catching up basically
(07:45):
and having to digest a lot of this, and in
the fourth quarter specifically, but you know, I wonder, I
wonder what it would take because we are heading towards
a deadline for the college football playoff expansion right, twenty
twenty six. They have to make a decision. I guess
it's now twenty twenty six. Happy new year to all
(08:05):
of you out there. By the way, We're happy to
go with you on Fox Sports Radio. I am. I'm
curious to see how they handle this at the deadline
for expansion, because they have to make a decision about
whether they want to expand to sixteen in the immediate
future after this playoff, or if they want to continue
to have this for lack of a better term, exploratory period,
(08:25):
I think we have enough of a representative sample size
to say that the schedule is wrong, right that the
and I know that some level of capitulation has been
made by the college football powers that be, by the
NCAA and the people that schedule this thing for the
purposes of making sure that the Rose Bowl is still
involved and the Orange Bowl is still involved. Right, all
the things about college football historically at this time of
(08:49):
year that we have considered kind of sacred cows. Right,
But if it's going to lead to bad football and
a I don't want to say I shouldn't say an
unworthy champion, but just a bit of a mutated sample
size of what we spent all year long watching. Then
I do think that people need to take a long,
hard look at this and say, Okay, do we have
(09:11):
to do this in the Rose Bowl every year? Does
it have to stretch out this long? Or can we
get into this and let the ball season play out
after the fact. And I mean, I know the people
that run the Rose Bowl would put up just I
mean lose their absolute minds. And it's probably sacrilegious to
a portion of the college football audience for me to
even speak that into existence. But at the end of
(09:32):
the day, just look at what you're watching. This is
not This is not the playoff that we were promised, right,
And so maybe there's some requirement on us to readjust
our expectations. But I don't want to have to fit. See,
I want to be entertained by this, and I'm not
getting the same quality of play from these teams that
I got the whole regular season long.
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Speaker 3 (10:06):
He's Buck rising on, Jason Fitz.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
You've You've made a very important observation here that I
think needs a little bit of attention here because so
much we're.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Gonna talk about the Rose Bowl.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Like, and the Rose Bowl is later obviously that's Indiana
in the Rose Bowl. This game a game that we've
all seen the just the images of the wild pouring
rain that is coming down. It is going to be
a messy, disgusting, awful, glorious, beautiful football game all at once.
If you like ugly settings for football, the Rose Bulll's
going to give you that. Alabama Indiana, big brands. That
(10:40):
game kicks off at four o'clock Eastern, so just under
an hour from that.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Oh, that's fair, that's that's fair. Big teams, let's say,
big team. I don't know, but it does.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
It does raise a real question about sort of where
we are on these bulls, because I gotta be honest,
I don't give a damn about the Rose Bowl. And
this is like every time I have to say, and
again I cover college football, it's one of the biggest
parts of my resume. I am a bulletannikof award voter
for the best wide receiver in college football. I absolutely
love and adore this sport. It's also okay to say
(11:13):
that I don't really give a damn about the history
of the Granddaddy of the mall. Like, I just am
not a person that sits there and says, oh my God.
Like I've never been the type of person that, historically
in my life looks at it and says, well, I
have to go to this place because this famous person
was here. I have to go to this thing because
famous things have happened here in the past. It just
doesn't hit me that way. I don't care about the
(11:35):
history of the Rose Bowl. And that is why one
thing we've seen this weekend has drastically fallen flat and
it needs to change right now in the college football playoff.
I'll tell you what it is next. He's Buck Rising.
I'm Jason fitz Bucke. Fits take it over. Fox Sports Radio.
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Speaker 3 (12:02):
Hey, this is Jason McIntyre.
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Join me every weekday morning on my podcast, Straight Fire
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Speaker 2 (12:35):
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There was ever a band, Buck Rising would definitely be
the cowbell player we ever did a Fox Sports Radio band,
He's Buck Rising. I'm Jason fitz Bucking fits. You have
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You got a certain like hip thrusty motion. You gotta
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We have another touchdown and this game is basically done.
(13:29):
There's about twenty seconds left. Oregon is now up twenty
two to nothing over Texas Tech, pending the extra point
sixteen seconds remain in this game. It was a fourth
and goal from the one. They went for it, as
they have done throughout much of this game. If you
had missed this game, one of the wild stories of
it is that we all know that Texas Tech has
a great run defense, and Oregon came out and decided
(13:51):
that they were weirdly gonna run with a lot of pace,
So they were going to get to the line of
scrimmage and they were just going to hand the ball
off to anybody that could take a carry. They have
run the ball repeatedly throughout the course. This just trying
to get enough carries to wear down the defense. They
have run the ball. This is a staggering number in
this game. Of twenty three to nothing. Now, Oregon has
(14:13):
forty seven rushing attempts for sixty four yards. They've only
been able to run for one point four yard per carry.
But damn it, buck, they have been convinced if we
wear them down long enough, we will find a.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Way to get this done.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
A huge offensive effort, huge discipline from Oregon, but it's
really Organ's defense.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
It was a story in this.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Game well, and it's one of those things where it's
not going to be aesthetically pleasing, right and this has
been a game that has been awesome for Oregon's defense
to kind of have a bit of a coming out party.
And they were so close to a defensive touchdown in
this game that the Texas Tech quarterback was able to
stop them. Just shy of twenty three to nothing right now,
(14:54):
which will likely end up being the final assuming that
Texas Tech does not get their first points of the
game by going all the way down the field with
sixteen seconds left. I am curious to see how they
manage this moving forward, because assuming well, I'm not going
to make any assumptions about Indiana Alabama. I really, I
(15:15):
genuinely have no idea how that game is going to
play out. I'm an IU alum. It would be cool
to see my alma mater win against Alabama today. I
think the weather is supposed to ease up a little
bit by kickoff out there in Pasadena, because it has
been a deluge for basically two days in California in
ways that the Rose Bowl is not accustomed to. But
for the way that Oregon went about winning this game. Fitzi,
(15:37):
you were bringing this up in the commercial break because
obviously you have a vested interest in quarterback draft prospects
and evaluation with the Raiders tracking as we head into
week eighteen in the NFL season, tracking for the number
one overall pick and Fernando Mendoza right now being the
only one of these quarterbacks top quarterback prospects that is
(15:58):
definitively coming out, and just kind of looking at Dante
Moore and seeing the way that they've tailored their game
plan here to make sure that they could try as
much as humanly possible to mitigate the effects of that
awesome Texas Tech defensive line that was again awesome today,
but just not enough of a team effort to get
this thing done. It's going to be a surrender run
(16:19):
for Texas Tech at the end of the game, it seems.
But they went about this in a way that said, Okay,
we don't have to win pretty like, we just have
to play awesome defense and we have to grind you down.
We have to grind you down. And this is the
way that I think every football team should approach it.
(16:39):
And again understanding that there are some matchups to each
individual game, whether you're talking about NFL or Pro, that
have to be taken into consideration, Like you can't just
go in with the mindset of great defense, grinding, crushing
running game will be our best chance for success. But
in reality that is more often the formula for success
than not in how these game games get decided. And
(17:01):
so Oregon just decided today that they're, yeah, they don't
care about style points. They're just going to go out
there and try and win a grimy, gritty football game.
And that's exactly what they did, to their credit or
to their credit twenty three nothing.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
The final you mentioned it Dante Moore twenty six to
thirty three, two thirty four. If you watch the game,
the goal was get the ball out of his hands quickly,
which it needed to be because the Texas Tech defensive
front had nine tackles for loss and two sacks in
this game. But again, the Oregon defensive front, which has
not had a lot of uh necessarily love to that
same level. The Oregon defensive front put up seven tackles
(17:35):
for loss, they put up four sacks, and Brandon Finney
Junior and they, many of you may not know, if
you haven't watched a lot of Oregon football freshman absolutely
had an epic. I mean, if he's not the MVP
of this game, I don't know who could possibly be.
Defensive back with two picks that were really key in
this game, and also a fumble recovery. Now, the fumble
recovery right place, right time. He just happened to land
(17:56):
on it. But either way, two picks and a fumble recover,
three and overs for one particular person, so absolutely hysterical
to me, just to see the way all that comes through.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Now.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
I will also mention, while we're praising so much in
this game, this was the capital One Orange Bowl. All Right,
I got to remind you that it was the Capital
One Orange Bowl, because nobody remembers that this is the
Capitol One Orange Bowl.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
It's one of the weird.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Things about like the cheese At Bowl and the Poptar
Bowl and the Duke's Male Bowl and all these bulls
that are cheesy we keep saying need to be fixed,
and nobody's paying attention to. Well, we saw their brand placement,
their product placement. We think of those brand names with it.
The Orange Bowl was just playoff game. So it felt
to me buck like more of a playoff game and
less of an actual bowl game in any way, shape
(18:40):
or form. I say that because the crowd was pathetic,
and the crowd is terrible for this thing. And so
we're coming off a week where we see these great
home environments and then you get a neutral environment, and
I would just I would just say, if I'm an
Oregon fan, why the hell would I have flown to Florida?
Speaker 3 (18:55):
If the game goes well?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
If Oregon, you know, And that's this is where you
have to sort of look at the what comes next? Right,
if the game doesn't go well, then you paid all
that money to fly there, you got tickets which.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Were dirt cheap.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
You spade at a hotel to watch your favorite team lose,
Like that's not worth any of the investment. If the
game actually goes well, well, then you would get the
chance to see them in the next round in the
Chick fil A Beach Bowl, which might be easier to
get to, or maybe you send you save your money
for a trip to Florida for the championship game, because
why are you flying to any of these weird neutral
site games when the only game that's gonna matter that
(19:29):
you'll want to be at is the championship game.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
We got.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
I understand the history of the Orange Bowl. I understand
the history of the Rose Bowl. I understand all these
historical things. I understand them. I get the gravitas to them.
Moving forward, I don't care, like, give them a rotation
of which one hosts the championship game, just like there's
a rotation in the Super Bowl, and keep these games
on campuses because you can't tell me this wouldn't have
been like, you cannot tell me Texas Tech wouldn't have
(19:54):
felt different even about this game having the four seat
at home at Texas Tech.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
I mean that's just an that would have been a
killer environment to watch.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Again, it's about what is really the advantage of getting
the top seeds in the college football playoff? Right, We
talked about this earlier, and think about the Ohio State
Miami game last night. Ohio State fans just spent all
of last year in some form or fashion, traveling around paying.
I'm sure you know it's mostly about the travel because
the get in prices for these games are actually pretty
(20:23):
cost effectors because they're not actually getting the attendance that
they want. And so does the Orange Bowl, the Rose Bowl,
the Cotton Bowl, all these different things, do they still
carry that same level of gravitas and history if aesthetically
you got a bunch of empties like it looks like
a regular season Dolphins game in there, which is not
(20:44):
a compliment because the Dolphins games are not well attended
at hard Rock Stadium throughout the course of the season
and I mean depending on the season. But still, you
understand my point, this is not something that does justice
to that they're trying to protect, which is the mystique
of these legendary bowl games beyond being you know, looking
(21:08):
more like the Hawaii Bowl or the Vegas Bowl than
the Cotton Bowl or the Orange Bowl. It's a weird thing.
You're not gonna pay this much money if you're a
fan of any college football program to travel around to
various parts of the country just to see your football
team play. You're gonna pick one game, right, and you're
I think a lot of people like Indiana is gonna
have a good contingent at the Rose Bowl. Indiana, I mean,
(21:32):
it's not a Cinderella right there. The number one seed.
We'll talk about that later, I'm sure, because Miami looks
more like that than Indiana does. But I'm looking at
the crowd. We're seeing the crowd shots of the Rose
Bowl now, and it will be well attended. I feel
pretty confident in that. But that's because Indiana is just
happy to be here, right They don't know that they're
going to advance to the Peach Bowl next weekend and
see Oregon at this point in time and a potential rematch.
(21:54):
They don't know how many more times they're gonna get
to go back to a game like the Rose Bowl
to see their team as a number one seed in
the college football Playoff. Although as long as Signetti is there,
it feels like they have a pretty good chance to
at least be postseason participants. I think that these are
the kind of things, as we talked about in the
first segment, that really do need to be examined in
(22:16):
what serves the game best? Are we just doing things?
And there is some component of this where you can
just answer it simply by saying, well, yeah, they answer
to all of your questions is money. There is money
associated with this. Is it so worth it to the
state of college football, to the state of these programs
to put them in positions where you are making life
(22:36):
harder on them? Because in reality, and I talked to
buddy of mine at TCU a couple of days ago,
maybe a week or so ago, before their bowl game
against USC, and he was pointing out to me the
difficulty of their college football playoff run a couple of
years ago because they didn't have the travel, all the
different things budgeted for all the different places they were
(22:57):
going to have to pick up and move a college
football that way. And I'm not saying, you know, oh,
poor TCU or poor Alabama or poor Indiana, like these
programs have money, but still the amount of strain that
you're putting on your fan bases and your participants. It's
just the juice is not worth the squeeze.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
And that's where I guess.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
For me, I have such a logic in my life
of so what now, what where are we today?
Speaker 3 (23:21):
And how do we move forward? I don't really care
how we got here, how do we move forward?
Speaker 2 (23:24):
I care about history for the sense of studying it
so you don't repeat it. I care about history because
I think it's important for contextual conversations. But I don't
think that that has to bog down growth. And so
I look at all of this and I say, okay,
I hear you. When everybody says, well, you know the money,
the money, and the money, My answer to that is
the real money from the Orange Bowl comes from the
Capital One portion of it. So now the question is
(23:46):
what's a better return on investment for Capital One? And
I don't know this, I'm not in their meeting. What's
a better return on investment? In my mind, is it
showing me a.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
Three hour Capital One advertisement.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
In an empty stadium in Miami with the dead atmosphere
and a bad band play at halftime, or is it
a home game at Texas Tech that's still called the
Capitol One whatever, Orange Bowl, call it whatever the hell
you want to. I don't care call it the Capitol
One Playoffs some and I don't care. Keep the Capitol
One attachment, to keep the brand sponsorship attachment to it,
and let that game be where it needs to be.
(24:17):
And part of this is I'm asking college football fans
like myself to think about what history is.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Going to look like in thirty years.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
So where I go to is, instead of being focused
on what the Orange Bowl has always been, ask yourself,
what is the best way to keep the Orange Bowl
as relevant as it can be forever?
Speaker 3 (24:35):
And that's to make it a site game. It just is.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
And so even if that's a burden on the sponsors,
and even if that's a pain in the ass for
everybody to try and figure out how to get their
signage and their events plans and all these things on
short notice, I understand the burdens that that creates for
the sponsored elements of it. Buck But to me, it's
so abundantly clear, like today's game would have been a
better environment.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Today's game would have been a better one.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Today's game would have been more people would have been
locked in the entire way to a blowout football game.
If we were seeing that and surrender Cobra every three seconds,
you can't see surrender Cobra when nobody that went there
surrendering like it's just it's it's too vanilla of an environment.
And you know that works for your championship game, because
it has to work for your championship game. You can't
(25:21):
tell me that it would be the game we're about
to watch. And I'm sorry college football diehards. I am
sorry to say this. The game we're about to watch,
the Rose Bowl, would be a better game to watch
if it was Alabama at Indiana. So if you really
need to keep the granddaddy of them all, just make it,
like just fine, just make it the national championship game.
(25:42):
If it's that important to you historically, make it the
national championship game. But you can't tell me that some
Alabama fans hanging out rooting against some Indiana fans is
better than the environment would be if we were at Indiana.
And you can't tell me the teams wouldn't fight tooth
and nail even harder for home field if they knew
that home field wasn't just there for the first round.
(26:03):
It's there for the entire thing. I want to get
Buck's thoughts on it, but I think I think we
have Martin. I think we have Martin Wise. So Martin,
if we have you, buddy, let's get the Let's get
the scoreboard going, my friend, Happy New Year's Fellas, Happy
New Year Body, Oregon Advance.
Speaker 6 (26:17):
It's twenty three to nothing over Texas Tech in the
Orange Bowl with seven tackles for lost, four sacks, shutting
down that potent Red Raider offense that we saw all season.
Miami beat Ohio State and Coddle Bowl twenty four to fourteen.
Miami and I made the Final four after needing an
that large bid to make the playoffs. Indiana and Alabama.
They'll be kicking off soon here in the rain in Pasadena.
(26:38):
Buck good decision not to come to the game because
it's been miserable out of here. Ole Miss and Georgia
playing in the Sugar Bowl. In the nightcap. In the
NFL News, Saints Chris Olave is going to be out
for the last game of the season. He's got blood
clots Jordan love Clear's concussion protocol, but the Packers are
gonna sit him until the playoffs start. The Buccaneers need
to win against the Panthers and make into the playoffs.
(27:00):
Jamel Dean and Anthony Nelson, cornerback and linebacker, are going
to be out against the Panthers, and Packer's head coach
Matt Laflour said tray Von Diggs, former Dallas cornerback, could
be in the lineup for Green Bay against the Vikings
on Sunday. Diggs claimed off waivers after the Vikings released
him earlier this week. Fellas back to you.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
This man tried to bully me into going to Pasadena
and then said, oh, good decision not to come.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Get out of here.
Speaker 6 (27:24):
I mean, listen, it would have been it's hard to
lose coming here, but it would have been tragic had
it been the fourteen days.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Of the year where it rains and that's the time
you decided to come, we would have been a real loser.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
So Mark, because like all Buck would have done for
the next year, is complained about the time we encouraged
him to go watch his alma mater playing the Rose Bowl.
I'm sorry that encourage you go to go watch your
alma mater playing the Rose Bowl.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
It's such an inconvenience to you.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Buck, Do you know that would be the first Indiana
game I had ever attended in person.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
That's so on brand? Not so, No, it's not on brand.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
No, it's on brand for them. They're the losingest football
program in the history of college football. Forgive me if
my college experience was not going to be filled with
Indiana football losing that way.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
I have been to Bloomington many times. Exactly what were
you doing on Saturday? That was so much more engaging
than watching Indiana football get their ass kick.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
The Indiana game and then going home and watching Notre
Dame like every other person in that state.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Oh my god, this is this is yet yet here
you sit in an Indiana what do we call that
a sweater in Indiana hockey?
Speaker 1 (28:30):
It's got a hockey sweater on.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
It's very You've ever been to an Indiana hockey match?
Speaker 1 (28:34):
No? I have not.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Okay, so you're a fraud.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
That's just you're just building a top to bottom of
your fraud worth thirty four minutes to twelve seconds by
the way from Indiana Alabama.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Gouh, I know, it's it's fine. I am going to
take advantage of the logistical ease of them potentially playing
in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta, which as I sit
here in Nashville, is about a thirty minute flight as
opposed to Pasadena, and it is indoors, which is much
more my speed. I'm an indoor cab. I'm not an
outdoor cat. We're not. We're not if you're going to
get me to if you're going to convince me to
(29:04):
go to a football game that I'm not paid to
be at anymore at this point in my career, which
is a very very you want to talk about things
that are on brand FITSI it's a really tough sale
to get me to go to live sporting events where
I don't get parking and you know, a really great
view and free food in the press box and all
those things that I'm accustomed to as an NFL reporter. Like,
it's a tough sell for me at this point in
time to actually do it. But if they do make
(29:26):
it to the Peach Bowl, I will slide on down
to Atlanta and I will watch my alma mater play
and I will take in an Indiana football game for
the first time in my life.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
I had a friend in Connecticut asked me over the summer,
if I wanted to go see a concert of a
particular artist touring, and my response was, I don't think
I know anybody in that camp to get any any access.
And the answer was, well, I wasn't asking for access,
like we're buying tickets in there whatever, one hundred and
fifty bucks each. And I was like, oh no, no, no, no,
no, no no me, no no no, no, no no. So
(29:57):
I feel I feel I'll admit my elitism when it
comes to certain things. Yeah, there's I don't mind paying
for a sporting event, but I'm not paying for a
concert Like That's just that is where it is. He's
Buck Rising, I'm Jason fitz.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
It is.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
It's hard because I can acknowledge, as everybody right now
driving around listening to us talk about college football, I
can acknowledge that college football isn't a really weird place
because change is really weird.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
The thing for me is that when you see change coming,
I just want to see everybody involved in it say, okay,
let's rip the band aid off. Let's hurt everybody as
much as possible, but only hurt him once. Instead of
making you know, small changes over and over and over
against So to your point, like this year, if you
were somebody that's been screaming college football playoffs, cannot expand
(30:46):
I just want you to understand this year, you are
losing that battle. There's no doubt in my mind now
because again, every single team with the first round by
has lost so far in the two year history that
we've had, nobody's won with the first So that's going
to be addressed. And the easiest way to address that
is to eliminate first round bys by adding more games,
which becomes easier to justify. In a year where people
(31:09):
thought Miami might not even make the tournament, Miami doesn't
belong and now they have two wins. So all of
a sudden, every single person that's been saying, no, there
aren't going to be sixteen teams worthy of winning a
national championship most years, well most of you didn't believe
that Miami deserved to be in this thing at all,
and now they just took down clearly the number one
(31:29):
team in the country for much of the season.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
You know, I wonder if it doesn't speak to because
Joe Clatt, who's obviously the top analysts college football analyst
for Fox and does a podcast and does many you know,
offers many Joe Clatt has some of the stronger opinions
on just about anything you ask him about on a
regular basis, which I do appreciate to some extent until
(31:52):
he tries to come after college basketball the way that
he did earlier this year and had to.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Walk it back.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
But Clatt in kind of in disparaging March Madness in
an appearance I think he was on a Birmingham radio
show or live stream show or something to that effect,
and he was saying that we don't want Cinderella's in
college football. We want the best team to be tested
and to earn the national championship, and we want the
most fair and competitively balanced field humanly possible as opposed
(32:21):
to the chaos that is March Madness in a single eliminade.
And this is a single elimination tournament as well, but
just the structure of it can lead to a greater
percentage chance of upsets than basically any other sport, maybe
the hockey playoffs, right, And so I wonder if this
isn't kind of speaking to the kind of thing that
Clatt was railing against in that fact, which is that
college football doesn't want Cinderella's, although I kind of I'm
(32:44):
kind of about it. I kind of like the fact
that Miami has been doubted the whole way through, and
you know, Notre Dame fans were screaming about Miami's presence
in the college Football Playoff because the way the committee
went about about it, even if it was the correct decision.
And so, as to your point, they go out there,
they beat A and M at A and M and
it's a gross game, but they get it done right.
(33:05):
And so they go against Ohio State last night and
they I mean, is it unfair to say that Miami
dominated the defending champions in Ohio State? I don't think
it's unfair.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
It absolutely did.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
I think it was a dominant performance by a team
that does have talent. And the biggest question was, okay,
do I just do I really trust Carson Beck to
be the better quarterback in this game? And to his credit,
he absolutely was, which gives you the kind of oh, well,
that's fun. That's not something that I expected. That adds
an interesting and unique wrinkle into this entire process. Why
(33:38):
can't college football have cinderellas that are fun and competitive?
Highly competitive, like jmu is not your Cinderella here, Miami is.
That's an entirely different ballgame when you put it through
that context.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
There is an exact in my mind, NFL comp to
what we're seeing. We have recently seen. Recently, we have
seen an NFL team do exactly what Miami is doing
and we loved every second of it. We'll make that
comp I'll tell you what I'm talking about next. He's
Buck Rising. I'm Jason Fitz. We're getting just getting started
on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Please you're listening.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
To Fox Sports Radio Radio.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
He's Buck Rising. I'm Jason Fitz, Bucking fits, hanging out
with you on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Got plenty of thoughts about Miami upsetting Ohio State and
what it really means for the future college football.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
But first let's get you the play of the day,
the tire rack play of the day coming at you
right now. Stamp give it to did Davison goal? Did
it get in? He is Jordan Davison.
Speaker 7 (34:41):
The ex club mation points on the Orange bole as
Oregon makes it undeniably fair ball game, bable it face
and live to play another day.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Jerry Allen at Learfield on the call, for over forty years,
Tyrack's been helping customers find the right tires for how,
what and where they drive, shipped fast and for red
backed by free Road, has their protection with convenient installation
options like mobile tire installation tirerac dot com. The way
tire buying should be. Miami is showing us the way
playoff runs should be. And this is where some purists
will come in and say, buck, well, college football is
(35:16):
no longer even gonna have the best team be the champion,
And like, what's the point? I would turn around and
ask everybody think back, not that long ago till a
football team.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Named the New York Giants.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
They qualified for the playoff as a wildcard, barely snuck in,
and then went on an improbable playoff run. A team
with a ton of history, a team with Super Bowls
already on their resume, goes on an improbable run and
it ends in a super Bowl where they take on
the undefeated New England Patriots, who had the chance to
make NFL history as absolutely, without question, the single greatest
(35:50):
team you've ever seen an NFL history, And the Giants won,
and everybody freaked out, and everybody dot dot loved it.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Not Patriots fans, but everybody else. That's the biggest part
of it. Everybody else looked at him, said, oh my god,
what an incredible story.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
To me, that's what people miss when they sit here
and say, oh, well, if a team like Miami's a championship,
what's the point.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
In the regular season.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
We actually like it when teams come from oun't nowhere
and go on championship runs.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
I want to know who these people are that are
saying this, because those people do exist, to your point,
I just wonder, like, what is the actual percentage of them,
because is that not the thing that makes us enjoy sports?
Like I don't want to see Tom Brady go undefeated
and just win the championship every year as if he's
on Madden Rookie Mode or something like that. I want
to see him be pushed. I want to see his greatness,
(36:39):
you know, no, maybe not questioned in moments, but I
just want to see him have something that can get
in his way and if he so overcomes it, then great,
and you can make Tom Brady. And Tom Brady already
is the greatest of all time, but not at that
point in time, right. I want to see him have
to struggle a little bit. I don't think people actually
root for the best team to win because they don't
actually like the best team. Don't like the Chiefs, people
(37:01):
don't like the Patriots, people don't like the the I mean,
what's what's the example of the Golden.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
State when Golden State had the best NBA regular season
in history and they lost a championship and everyone's like,
everybody loved that.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Yeah, they're they're you. You don't make these figures likable,
So why do you want them to win all the
time if you're just gonna complain about it after the fact.
I think that And and by the way, the the
we used this word earlier, gravitas, the the impact and
the gravitas of the Giants winning those two Super Bowls.
(37:34):
Maybe Eli Manning doesn't get into the Hall of Fame, right,
Maybe maybe Eli is just gonna be one of these
who's the tackle that's currently been waiting for I mean,
basically since the nineties, Willie Anderson, Like maybe remember rude, I.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
Remember.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
I just mean that Willy Anderson was obviously a great
player at his position, but he's been waiting a long
time because there was a bunch of other people who
became eligible for the Hall of Fame while he was
to get in, and so we get squeezed at this
point in time. And you see this every once in
a while in the Hall of Fame voting. Maybe ELI
doesn't get in, but Eli's best argument for getting in
is that he beat Tom Brady to win his two
Super Bowls even though he wasn't the best quarterback in
(38:12):
his class. Like that carries a tremendous amount of weight.
Why would you begrudge an underdog that opportunity.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
It's weird to me, and it becomes one of the
best stories. It becomes the sitting on the porch story.
Like I say all the time that one of the
things I think are funny about Lebron haters is that
Lebron haters right now, we're gonna sit there and tell
you Lebron's no MJ. Lebron's no MJ. And in thirty
years they'll be sitting there with the grandkids and saying, oh,
that kid playing I watched Lebron right Like, there's this
(38:40):
inevitable chance for that happens at some point. Well, it's
the same when you talk about championship seasons. If Miami
is able to somehow win the college football Championship this
year on a team that everybody thought shouldn't have even
made the playoffs, that people spent weeks saying, oh my god,
how could this happen?
Speaker 3 (38:55):
Right? Like, for Miami to go out and do that.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
That becomes one of the rates championship stories in college
football history. The team that barely snuck into the playoff
and then won all the way through. And by the way,
not only did they win their way through, they upset
everybody at every single level, including the greatest upset in
college football playoff history over the number two team but
Ohio State that was the defending national champion.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Blah blah blah. I mean, this all becomes part of
the Disney movie No.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
And I'm curious to see how people how people are
talking about this. I mean, we're obviously talking about this
because we're on this week and kind of the context
that it's viewed in, because I just I don't understand
the counter argument, Like, what is the counter argument that
you just want to see dominance and excellence the whole
way through? What is even the pushback in this situation.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
The specialness of the college football world is that the
regular season matters so much, and every single game has
mattered so much, over and over and over again. And
now if all you have to do is barely qualify
for the playoffs and you win the championship, what you're
really doing telling everybody that those games in the middle
of October November don't matter. That's the argument I constantly
hear from people. When I have this argument, I just
(40:07):
don't answer.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
True, they all matter, right, If you have these losses,
then you're you're dinged accordingly. I mean, this is the
entire Notre Dame thing.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Well, and last time I checked, no matter how many
losses bad NFL teams have, we still flock to watch
them even when their season is meaningless. So you know,
I think the concept is that the sport dies if
the regular season isn't as important.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
It's just it forgets the growth.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
For everybody that's now watching a regular season they didn't
necessarily think they needed to watch, so all the other
fan bases are equally being fed. He's Buck Rising, I'm
Jason Fitz. We're just getting started. We'll update you on
the Rose Bowl, what's coming next on Fox Sports Radio
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Missed field goal may leave the window of opportunity open
for Texas Tech. But as we sit right now, Oregon
toppling Texas Tech sixteen to nothing, and it raises a
very real question about rest versus rust because if this
trend continues, if this is our final outcome, I will
remind you every single team so far that it's been
(00:24):
lucky enough to get the first round by and the
College Football Playoff, every team they got the first round
by last year they lost.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
We saw Miami go down.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
And they win their first round matchup, been inn upset,
and now we are watching Oregon beat Texas Tech. So
far over you get the first round by, you lose?
Is the college football Playoff? The problem is the calendar
of the problem. Is it coincidence?
Speaker 3 (00:46):
We'll figure it out.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
He's Buck Rising, I'm Jason fitz hanging out with He's
a bucking Fits takeover on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Buck.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
I don't know what to make of it, Like, look
at the small sample size and I'm trying not to overreact,
but every single team that gets first round by come
out and just gets beat.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
There's got to be something to it.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Why would you put that evil on me today? Indiana's
playing in the Rose Bowl. They haven't played a football
game in twenty days, and you're going to start to
show that way.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's exactly. I mean, of course, why
do you think? What do you think I was gonna
give you sunshine of Roses to start twenty twenty six?
Speaker 3 (01:16):
What are we doing here?
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yes, I would like to feel good about the idea
of my alma mater being actually able to win a
college football playoff game as the number one overall seed
against Alabama because I've been confident about it all day
until or basically all I guess a month for lack
of a better term, since we've last seen Indiana play football.
I'm like, Okay, Alabama, they've got some flaws. This is
(01:39):
a matchup that should I don't think that Indiana had
any business being a touchdown a seven and a half
point favorite in the Rose Bowl over Alabama. But I've
felt pretty good about the situation the whole way through,
and then I watched Miami. I mean, it is, by
point spread and by margin of victory by the underdog,
the biggest upset of the college football playoff era. What
(02:01):
Miami did to Ohio State last night, and the pick
six put them over the top. Is a beautiful play
by the defender to just snatch that one, read it
the whole way through, snatch it out of the air,
and then just make Julian say and look mortal as
a defensive front the way that they were able to
do the entire basically the entire game. Ohio State rallied
(02:22):
back a little bit in the second half, but never
really threatened. And I am FITZI if we're talking about
is this something that has to be studied in great details?
Should we continue to see such upsets moving forward? As
Texas Tech is clearly trailing as you mentioned, sixteen to
nothing in the I mean we're under five minutes to
play at this point in time in the Orange Bowl.
(02:46):
If this continues throughout the course of today with these
teams that got a first round by looking a little sluggish,
if not outright getting beat, then yes, the calendar absolutely
has to be studied because it no longer becomes an
advantage to have this much of a layoff if you're
going to earn the number one overall seed in this situation.
There's some conversation that We had about this in the
(03:06):
NFL too. They're going to earn that top seed in
that by though you want it to be to your advantage,
it does not seem to be advantageous to have this
long of a layoff for these football teams.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
And it's the length of the layoff that I think
is really jarring, because to your point, in the NFL,
it's one week, right, Sure, some guys might get rested
this week, so maybe you could look at it and say, well,
it's a little longer than that, but you're talking about
basically one week. In the college football landscape you referenced it.
I mean, the Big Ten championship game was what December fifth,
December sixth, so it's been twenty days since there's been anything.
(03:37):
I found myself, and I know how stupid this sounds,
but I found myself sitting on the couch today saying,
are we going to reach a world where college football
coaches try and schedule some sort of glorified practice exhibition
against another team just to try and keep the juices phones,
just to try.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
And keep the energy.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Because every offense, every single offense that we expected something from,
has looked a little out of whack. At the beginning
of every game, even if you go back to the
first round, like Alabama was down seventeen to nothing and
they came back and with that, but it looked like
Alabama was sleepwalking in the very beginning of that game.
We saw some of that Texas a and them looked
(04:13):
like they were a little out of rhythm in the
first game. Now, maybe that's Miami's defense, but then you
get Ohio friend.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
In that game was also outrageous.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
And now we get Ohio State that just looked pathetic offensively.
And we've had a game that I genuinely I sat
down because you know me, everybody knows my Raiders fandom.
If you're listening to Fox Sports Radio, you've figured it
out by now. I was excited to watch Dante more
in this game, just to get more more proof of
who Dante Moore is as a quarterback. And I just
watched this man. Offenses across the board. Now Oregon didn't
(04:44):
have a buy obviously, but offenses across the board are
just so far behind the defenses right now. This was
a what was supposed to be an electric game was
a painful watch and a lot of times I'll look
at it and.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Say, well, great defense. I love great defense. I don't
even know that we were seeing that.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Like the play calling has been super safe other than
fourth down, the way that they're calling the game, the
way it looks. It just I don't know that we
really have seen the best of much of college football
so far. Miami's defense lights out, Oregon's defense has played
lights out today.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
I'm not taking anything away from that. I just am
wondering if.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
We're actually seeing the best representation of each of these
teams in the playoffs so far.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
I mean, we're seeing the best of their defenses, right.
Texas Text defensive line still has come out and been
just a bunch of ass kickers today. They can't score touchdown.
I mean they can, I guess, but that would be
a very difficult thing for a defense to be able
to put up sixteen points to match Oregon at this
point in time. So we are seeing that defensively, and
again the learning curve there or the level of layoff
(05:44):
for an offense that would bring about the kind of rust,
the kind of just disjointedness that we're talking about. We
don't have that on defense.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Right.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
This is something we talk about every year at the
start of the college football season or an NFL season
going to training camp. What do we always say, defense
is always ahead of the offense, right, Just an example
of basically starting a new season for these teams that
got the first round by even though I understand it's
not a new season, it's not new rosters or anything
like that, but this is essentially them trying to kick
(06:12):
it into gear again after having that long layoff and I,
oh my god, that sacked by Oregon.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
God, yeah, oh we are watching.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Maybe you're right, Maybe I need to recalibrate my mindset
on it because both of these defensive lines have played like.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
That quarterback, by the way, it does not look like
he's feeling good after that.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Oh man.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Well, and there was a fumble recovery earlier, a force
fumble on a sack that was recovered by the defensive lineman.
There was a beautiful play that also put a ton
of pressure on Morton's arms. So you know, this game
is just so weird. Because you're right, I will say
you're right. Defense has been great in this game. I'm
also watching an Oregon team that has won the turnover battle.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Four to one. They have four forced turnovers in this game.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
But they're also three for seven on fourth down, like
they've just been going for fourth they've been treating fourth
down like for Wimfy treats cars like just giving them
out to everybody, and they haven't been converting on more
often than not. So it's just a disjointed version. You're right,
Like Oregon's defense, Texas Tech was the noted defense coming
into this, and it felt like Oregon heard that Organ's
(07:15):
defense has played lights out in this game. Texas Tech
defense honestly has played lights out in this game, and
it still feels like it's been a bad football game.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
So just for the audience's context, I haven't seen much
of this football game until just now. I've been at
Titan's practice. The NFL does not take the day off
for New Year's Day, unfortunately, so we were out there
talking to cam Ward and coaches for the final time. Well,
I guess there'd be a practice tomorrow, so we'll talk
to players tomorrow too. But so I'm catching up basically
(07:45):
and having to digest a lot of this, and in
the fourth quarter specifically, but you know, I wonder, I
wonder what it would take because we are heading towards
a deadline for the college football playoff expansion right, twenty
twenty six. They have to make a decision. I guess
it's now twenty twenty six. Happy new year to all
(08:05):
of you out there. By the way, We're happy to
go with you on Fox Sports Radio. I am. I'm
curious to see how they handle this at the deadline
for expansion, because they have to make a decision about
whether they want to expand to sixteen in the immediate
future after this playoff, or if they want to continue
to have this for lack of a better term, exploratory period,
(08:25):
I think we have enough of a representative sample size
to say that the schedule is wrong, right that the
and I know that some level of capitulation has been
made by the college football powers that be, by the
NCAA and the people that schedule this thing for the
purposes of making sure that the Rose Bowl is still
involved and the Orange Bowl is still involved. Right, all
the things about college football historically at this time of
(08:49):
year that we have considered kind of sacred cows. Right,
But if it's going to lead to bad football and
a I don't want to say I shouldn't say an
unworthy champion, but just a bit of a mutated sample
size of what we spent all year long watching. Then
I do think that people need to take a long,
hard look at this and say, Okay, do we have
(09:11):
to do this in the Rose Bowl every year? Does
it have to stretch out this long? Or can we
get into this and let the ball season play out
after the fact. And I mean, I know the people
that run the Rose Bowl would put up just I
mean lose their absolute minds. And it's probably sacrilegious to
a portion of the college football audience for me to
even speak that into existence. But at the end of
(09:32):
the day, just look at what you're watching. This is
not This is not the playoff that we were promised, right,
And so maybe there's some requirement on us to readjust
our expectations. But I don't want to have to fit. See,
I want to be entertained by this, and I'm not
getting the same quality of play from these teams that
I got the whole regular season long.
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Speaker 3 (10:06):
He's Buck rising on, Jason Fitz.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
You've You've made a very important observation here that I
think needs a little bit of attention here because so
much we're.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Gonna talk about the Rose Bowl.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Like, and the Rose Bowl is later obviously that's Indiana
in the Rose Bowl. This game a game that we've
all seen the just the images of the wild pouring
rain that is coming down. It is going to be
a messy, disgusting, awful, glorious, beautiful football game all at once.
If you like ugly settings for football, the Rose Bulll's
going to give you that. Alabama Indiana, big brands. That
(10:40):
game kicks off at four o'clock Eastern, so just under
an hour from that.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Oh, that's fair, that's that's fair. Big teams, let's say,
big team. I don't know, but it does.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
It does raise a real question about sort of where
we are on these bulls, because I gotta be honest,
I don't give a damn about the Rose Bowl. And
this is like every time I have to say, and
again I cover college football, it's one of the biggest
parts of my resume. I am a bulletannikof award voter
for the best wide receiver in college football. I absolutely
love and adore this sport. It's also okay to say
(11:13):
that I don't really give a damn about the history
of the Granddaddy of the mall. Like, I just am
not a person that sits there and says, oh my God.
Like I've never been the type of person that, historically
in my life looks at it and says, well, I
have to go to this place because this famous person
was here. I have to go to this thing because
famous things have happened here in the past. It just
doesn't hit me that way. I don't care about the
(11:35):
history of the Rose Bowl. And that is why one
thing we've seen this weekend has drastically fallen flat and
it needs to change right now in the college football playoff.
I'll tell you what it is next. He's Buck Rising.
I'm Jason fitz Bucke. Fits take it over. Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports radio
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listen live.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Hey, this is Jason McIntyre.
Speaker 5 (12:04):
Join me every weekday morning on my podcast, Straight Fire
with Jason McIntyre. This isn't your typical sports pod pushing
the same tired narratives down your throat every day. Straight
Fire gives you honest opinions on all the biggest sports headlines,
accurate stats to help you win big at the sports book,
and all the best guests. Do yourself a favor and
(12:24):
listen to Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
I got a fever and the only prescription it's more cowbo.
There was ever a band, Buck Rising would definitely be
the cowbell player we ever did a Fox Sports Radio band,
He's Buck Rising. I'm Jason fitz Bucking fits. You have
to have a certain swag to be the cowboll player.
You got a certain like hip thrusty motion. You gotta
be comfortable in the crop. You gotta be comfortable coming
(12:56):
out to the edge of the stage knowing that you're
just hitting a stick against the bell. Well, that's screams,
Buck Rising. We're hanging out with the on Fox Sports Radio.
Don't forget With the iHeartRadio app, you can stream us
wherever you happen to be.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Catch us and.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
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We have another touchdown and this game is basically done.
(13:29):
There's about twenty seconds left. Oregon is now up twenty
two to nothing over Texas Tech, pending the extra point
sixteen seconds remain in this game. It was a fourth
and goal from the one. They went for it, as
they have done throughout much of this game. If you
had missed this game, one of the wild stories of
it is that we all know that Texas Tech has
a great run defense, and Oregon came out and decided
(13:51):
that they were weirdly gonna run with a lot of pace,
So they were going to get to the line of
scrimmage and they were just going to hand the ball
off to anybody that could take a carry. They have
run the ball repeatedly throughout the course. This just trying
to get enough carries to wear down the defense. They
have run the ball. This is a staggering number in
this game. Of twenty three to nothing. Now, Oregon has
(14:13):
forty seven rushing attempts for sixty four yards. They've only
been able to run for one point four yard per carry.
But damn it, buck, they have been convinced if we
wear them down long enough, we will find a.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Way to get this done.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
A huge offensive effort, huge discipline from Oregon, but it's
really Organ's defense.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
It was a story in this.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Game well, and it's one of those things where it's
not going to be aesthetically pleasing, right and this has
been a game that has been awesome for Oregon's defense
to kind of have a bit of a coming out party.
And they were so close to a defensive touchdown in
this game that the Texas Tech quarterback was able to
stop them. Just shy of twenty three to nothing right now,
(14:54):
which will likely end up being the final assuming that
Texas Tech does not get their first points of the
game by going all the way down the field with
sixteen seconds left. I am curious to see how they
manage this moving forward, because assuming well, I'm not going
to make any assumptions about Indiana Alabama. I really, I
(15:15):
genuinely have no idea how that game is going to
play out. I'm an IU alum. It would be cool
to see my alma mater win against Alabama today. I
think the weather is supposed to ease up a little
bit by kickoff out there in Pasadena, because it has
been a deluge for basically two days in California in
ways that the Rose Bowl is not accustomed to. But
for the way that Oregon went about winning this game. Fitzi,
(15:37):
you were bringing this up in the commercial break because
obviously you have a vested interest in quarterback draft prospects
and evaluation with the Raiders tracking as we head into
week eighteen in the NFL season, tracking for the number
one overall pick and Fernando Mendoza right now being the
only one of these quarterbacks top quarterback prospects that is
(15:58):
definitively coming out, and just kind of looking at Dante
Moore and seeing the way that they've tailored their game
plan here to make sure that they could try as
much as humanly possible to mitigate the effects of that
awesome Texas Tech defensive line that was again awesome today,
but just not enough of a team effort to get
this thing done. It's going to be a surrender run
(16:19):
for Texas Tech at the end of the game, it seems.
But they went about this in a way that said, Okay,
we don't have to win pretty like, we just have
to play awesome defense and we have to grind you down.
We have to grind you down. And this is the
way that I think every football team should approach it.
(16:39):
And again understanding that there are some matchups to each
individual game, whether you're talking about NFL or Pro, that
have to be taken into consideration, Like you can't just
go in with the mindset of great defense, grinding, crushing
running game will be our best chance for success. But
in reality that is more often the formula for success
than not in how these game games get decided. And
(17:01):
so Oregon just decided today that they're, yeah, they don't
care about style points. They're just going to go out
there and try and win a grimy, gritty football game.
And that's exactly what they did, to their credit or
to their credit twenty three nothing.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
The final you mentioned it Dante Moore twenty six to
thirty three, two thirty four. If you watch the game,
the goal was get the ball out of his hands quickly,
which it needed to be because the Texas Tech defensive
front had nine tackles for loss and two sacks in
this game. But again, the Oregon defensive front, which has
not had a lot of uh necessarily love to that
same level. The Oregon defensive front put up seven tackles
(17:35):
for loss, they put up four sacks, and Brandon Finney
Junior and they, many of you may not know, if
you haven't watched a lot of Oregon football freshman absolutely
had an epic. I mean, if he's not the MVP
of this game, I don't know who could possibly be.
Defensive back with two picks that were really key in
this game, and also a fumble recovery. Now, the fumble
recovery right place, right time. He just happened to land
(17:56):
on it. But either way, two picks and a fumble recover,
three and overs for one particular person, so absolutely hysterical
to me, just to see the way all that comes through.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Now.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
I will also mention, while we're praising so much in
this game, this was the capital One Orange Bowl. All Right,
I got to remind you that it was the Capital
One Orange Bowl, because nobody remembers that this is the
Capitol One Orange Bowl.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
It's one of the weird.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Things about like the cheese At Bowl and the Poptar
Bowl and the Duke's Male Bowl and all these bulls
that are cheesy we keep saying need to be fixed,
and nobody's paying attention to. Well, we saw their brand placement,
their product placement. We think of those brand names with it.
The Orange Bowl was just playoff game. So it felt
to me buck like more of a playoff game and
less of an actual bowl game in any way, shape
(18:40):
or form. I say that because the crowd was pathetic,
and the crowd is terrible for this thing. And so
we're coming off a week where we see these great
home environments and then you get a neutral environment, and
I would just I would just say, if I'm an
Oregon fan, why the hell would I have flown to Florida?
Speaker 3 (18:55):
If the game goes well?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
If Oregon, you know, And that's this is where you
have to sort of look at the what comes next? Right,
if the game doesn't go well, then you paid all
that money to fly there, you got tickets which.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Were dirt cheap.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
You spade at a hotel to watch your favorite team lose,
Like that's not worth any of the investment. If the
game actually goes well, well, then you would get the
chance to see them in the next round in the
Chick fil A Beach Bowl, which might be easier to
get to, or maybe you send you save your money
for a trip to Florida for the championship game, because
why are you flying to any of these weird neutral
site games when the only game that's gonna matter that
(19:29):
you'll want to be at is the championship game.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
We got.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
I understand the history of the Orange Bowl. I understand
the history of the Rose Bowl. I understand all these
historical things. I understand them. I get the gravitas to them.
Moving forward, I don't care, like, give them a rotation
of which one hosts the championship game, just like there's
a rotation in the Super Bowl, and keep these games
on campuses because you can't tell me this wouldn't have
been like, you cannot tell me Texas Tech wouldn't have
(19:54):
felt different even about this game having the four seat
at home at Texas Tech.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
I mean that's just an that would have been a
killer environment to watch.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Again, it's about what is really the advantage of getting
the top seeds in the college football playoff? Right, We
talked about this earlier, and think about the Ohio State
Miami game last night. Ohio State fans just spent all
of last year in some form or fashion, traveling around paying.
I'm sure you know it's mostly about the travel because
the get in prices for these games are actually pretty
(20:23):
cost effectors because they're not actually getting the attendance that
they want. And so does the Orange Bowl, the Rose Bowl,
the Cotton Bowl, all these different things, do they still
carry that same level of gravitas and history if aesthetically
you got a bunch of empties like it looks like
a regular season Dolphins game in there, which is not
(20:44):
a compliment because the Dolphins games are not well attended
at hard Rock Stadium throughout the course of the season
and I mean depending on the season. But still, you
understand my point, this is not something that does justice
to that they're trying to protect, which is the mystique
of these legendary bowl games beyond being you know, looking
(21:08):
more like the Hawaii Bowl or the Vegas Bowl than
the Cotton Bowl or the Orange Bowl. It's a weird thing.
You're not gonna pay this much money if you're a
fan of any college football program to travel around to
various parts of the country just to see your football
team play. You're gonna pick one game, right, and you're
I think a lot of people like Indiana is gonna
have a good contingent at the Rose Bowl. Indiana, I mean,
(21:32):
it's not a Cinderella right there. The number one seed.
We'll talk about that later, I'm sure, because Miami looks
more like that than Indiana does. But I'm looking at
the crowd. We're seeing the crowd shots of the Rose
Bowl now, and it will be well attended. I feel
pretty confident in that. But that's because Indiana is just
happy to be here, right They don't know that they're
going to advance to the Peach Bowl next weekend and
see Oregon at this point in time and a potential rematch.
(21:54):
They don't know how many more times they're gonna get
to go back to a game like the Rose Bowl
to see their team as a number one seed in
the college football Playoff. Although as long as Signetti is there,
it feels like they have a pretty good chance to
at least be postseason participants. I think that these are
the kind of things, as we talked about in the
first segment, that really do need to be examined in
(22:16):
what serves the game best? Are we just doing things?
And there is some component of this where you can
just answer it simply by saying, well, yeah, they answer
to all of your questions is money. There is money
associated with this. Is it so worth it to the
state of college football, to the state of these programs
to put them in positions where you are making life
(22:36):
harder on them? Because in reality, and I talked to
buddy of mine at TCU a couple of days ago,
maybe a week or so ago, before their bowl game
against USC, and he was pointing out to me the
difficulty of their college football playoff run a couple of
years ago because they didn't have the travel, all the
different things budgeted for all the different places they were
(22:57):
going to have to pick up and move a college
football that way. And I'm not saying, you know, oh,
poor TCU or poor Alabama or poor Indiana, like these
programs have money, but still the amount of strain that
you're putting on your fan bases and your participants. It's
just the juice is not worth the squeeze.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
And that's where I guess.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
For me, I have such a logic in my life
of so what now, what where are we today?
Speaker 3 (23:21):
And how do we move forward? I don't really care
how we got here, how do we move forward?
Speaker 2 (23:24):
I care about history for the sense of studying it
so you don't repeat it. I care about history because
I think it's important for contextual conversations. But I don't
think that that has to bog down growth. And so
I look at all of this and I say, okay,
I hear you. When everybody says, well, you know the money,
the money, and the money, My answer to that is
the real money from the Orange Bowl comes from the
Capital One portion of it. So now the question is
(23:46):
what's a better return on investment for Capital One? And
I don't know this, I'm not in their meeting. What's
a better return on investment? In my mind, is it
showing me a.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
Three hour Capital One advertisement.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
In an empty stadium in Miami with the dead atmosphere
and a bad band play at halftime, or is it
a home game at Texas Tech that's still called the
Capitol One whatever, Orange Bowl, call it whatever the hell
you want to. I don't care call it the Capitol
One Playoffs some and I don't care. Keep the Capitol
One attachment, to keep the brand sponsorship attachment to it,
and let that game be where it needs to be.
(24:17):
And part of this is I'm asking college football fans
like myself to think about what history is.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Going to look like in thirty years.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
So where I go to is, instead of being focused
on what the Orange Bowl has always been, ask yourself,
what is the best way to keep the Orange Bowl
as relevant as it can be forever?
Speaker 3 (24:35):
And that's to make it a site game. It just is.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
And so even if that's a burden on the sponsors,
and even if that's a pain in the ass for
everybody to try and figure out how to get their
signage and their events plans and all these things on
short notice, I understand the burdens that that creates for
the sponsored elements of it. Buck But to me, it's
so abundantly clear, like today's game would have been a
better environment.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Today's game would have been a better one.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Today's game would have been more people would have been
locked in the entire way to a blowout football game.
If we were seeing that and surrender Cobra every three seconds,
you can't see surrender Cobra when nobody that went there
surrendering like it's just it's it's too vanilla of an environment.
And you know that works for your championship game, because
it has to work for your championship game. You can't
(25:21):
tell me that it would be the game we're about
to watch. And I'm sorry college football diehards. I am
sorry to say this. The game we're about to watch,
the Rose Bowl, would be a better game to watch
if it was Alabama at Indiana. So if you really
need to keep the granddaddy of them all, just make it,
like just fine, just make it the national championship game.
(25:42):
If it's that important to you historically, make it the
national championship game. But you can't tell me that some
Alabama fans hanging out rooting against some Indiana fans is
better than the environment would be if we were at Indiana.
And you can't tell me the teams wouldn't fight tooth
and nail even harder for home field if they knew
that home field wasn't just there for the first round.
(26:03):
It's there for the entire thing. I want to get
Buck's thoughts on it, but I think I think we
have Martin. I think we have Martin Wise. So Martin,
if we have you, buddy, let's get the Let's get
the scoreboard going, my friend, Happy New Year's Fellas, Happy
New Year Body, Oregon Advance.
Speaker 6 (26:17):
It's twenty three to nothing over Texas Tech in the
Orange Bowl with seven tackles for lost, four sacks, shutting
down that potent Red Raider offense that we saw all season.
Miami beat Ohio State and Coddle Bowl twenty four to fourteen.
Miami and I made the Final four after needing an
that large bid to make the playoffs. Indiana and Alabama.
They'll be kicking off soon here in the rain in Pasadena.
(26:38):
Buck good decision not to come to the game because
it's been miserable out of here. Ole Miss and Georgia
playing in the Sugar Bowl. In the nightcap. In the
NFL News, Saints Chris Olave is going to be out
for the last game of the season. He's got blood
clots Jordan love Clear's concussion protocol, but the Packers are
gonna sit him until the playoffs start. The Buccaneers need
to win against the Panthers and make into the playoffs.
(27:00):
Jamel Dean and Anthony Nelson, cornerback and linebacker, are going
to be out against the Panthers, and Packer's head coach
Matt Laflour said tray Von Diggs, former Dallas cornerback, could
be in the lineup for Green Bay against the Vikings
on Sunday. Diggs claimed off waivers after the Vikings released
him earlier this week. Fellas back to you.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
This man tried to bully me into going to Pasadena
and then said, oh, good decision not to come.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Get out of here.
Speaker 6 (27:24):
I mean, listen, it would have been it's hard to
lose coming here, but it would have been tragic had
it been the fourteen days.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Of the year where it rains and that's the time
you decided to come, we would have been a real loser.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
So Mark, because like all Buck would have done for
the next year, is complained about the time we encouraged
him to go watch his alma mater playing the Rose Bowl.
I'm sorry that encourage you go to go watch your
alma mater playing the Rose Bowl.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
It's such an inconvenience to you.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Buck, Do you know that would be the first Indiana
game I had ever attended in person.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
That's so on brand? Not so, No, it's not on brand.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
No, it's on brand for them. They're the losingest football
program in the history of college football. Forgive me if
my college experience was not going to be filled with
Indiana football losing that way.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
I have been to Bloomington many times. Exactly what were
you doing on Saturday? That was so much more engaging
than watching Indiana football get their ass kick.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
The Indiana game and then going home and watching Notre
Dame like every other person in that state.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Oh my god, this is this is yet yet here
you sit in an Indiana what do we call that
a sweater in Indiana hockey?
Speaker 1 (28:30):
It's got a hockey sweater on.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
It's very You've ever been to an Indiana hockey match?
Speaker 1 (28:34):
No? I have not.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Okay, so you're a fraud.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
That's just you're just building a top to bottom of
your fraud worth thirty four minutes to twelve seconds by
the way from Indiana Alabama.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Gouh, I know, it's it's fine. I am going to
take advantage of the logistical ease of them potentially playing
in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta, which as I sit
here in Nashville, is about a thirty minute flight as
opposed to Pasadena, and it is indoors, which is much
more my speed. I'm an indoor cab. I'm not an
outdoor cat. We're not. We're not if you're going to
get me to if you're going to convince me to
(29:04):
go to a football game that I'm not paid to
be at anymore at this point in my career, which
is a very very you want to talk about things
that are on brand FITSI it's a really tough sale
to get me to go to live sporting events where
I don't get parking and you know, a really great
view and free food in the press box and all
those things that I'm accustomed to as an NFL reporter. Like,
it's a tough sell for me at this point in
time to actually do it. But if they do make
(29:26):
it to the Peach Bowl, I will slide on down
to Atlanta and I will watch my alma mater play
and I will take in an Indiana football game for
the first time in my life.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
I had a friend in Connecticut asked me over the summer,
if I wanted to go see a concert of a
particular artist touring, and my response was, I don't think
I know anybody in that camp to get any any access.
And the answer was, well, I wasn't asking for access,
like we're buying tickets in there whatever, one hundred and
fifty bucks each. And I was like, oh no, no, no, no,
no, no no me, no no no, no, no no. So
(29:57):
I feel I feel I'll admit my elitism when it
comes to certain things. Yeah, there's I don't mind paying
for a sporting event, but I'm not paying for a
concert Like That's just that is where it is. He's
Buck Rising, I'm Jason fitz.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
It is.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
It's hard because I can acknowledge, as everybody right now
driving around listening to us talk about college football, I
can acknowledge that college football isn't a really weird place
because change is really weird.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
The thing for me is that when you see change coming,
I just want to see everybody involved in it say, okay,
let's rip the band aid off. Let's hurt everybody as
much as possible, but only hurt him once. Instead of
making you know, small changes over and over and over
against So to your point, like this year, if you
were somebody that's been screaming college football playoffs, cannot expand
(30:46):
I just want you to understand this year, you are
losing that battle. There's no doubt in my mind now
because again, every single team with the first round by
has lost so far in the two year history that
we've had, nobody's won with the first So that's going
to be addressed. And the easiest way to address that
is to eliminate first round bys by adding more games,
which becomes easier to justify. In a year where people
(31:09):
thought Miami might not even make the tournament, Miami doesn't
belong and now they have two wins. So all of
a sudden, every single person that's been saying, no, there
aren't going to be sixteen teams worthy of winning a
national championship most years, well most of you didn't believe
that Miami deserved to be in this thing at all,
and now they just took down clearly the number one
(31:29):
team in the country for much of the season.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
You know, I wonder if it doesn't speak to because
Joe Clatt, who's obviously the top analysts college football analyst
for Fox and does a podcast and does many you know,
offers many Joe Clatt has some of the stronger opinions
on just about anything you ask him about on a
regular basis, which I do appreciate to some extent until
(31:52):
he tries to come after college basketball the way that
he did earlier this year and had to.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Walk it back.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
But Clatt in kind of in disparaging March Madness in
an appearance I think he was on a Birmingham radio
show or live stream show or something to that effect,
and he was saying that we don't want Cinderella's in
college football. We want the best team to be tested
and to earn the national championship, and we want the
most fair and competitively balanced field humanly possible as opposed
(32:21):
to the chaos that is March Madness in a single eliminade.
And this is a single elimination tournament as well, but
just the structure of it can lead to a greater
percentage chance of upsets than basically any other sport, maybe
the hockey playoffs, right, And so I wonder if this
isn't kind of speaking to the kind of thing that
Clatt was railing against in that fact, which is that
college football doesn't want Cinderella's, although I kind of I'm
(32:44):
kind of about it. I kind of like the fact
that Miami has been doubted the whole way through, and
you know, Notre Dame fans were screaming about Miami's presence
in the college Football Playoff because the way the committee
went about about it, even if it was the correct decision.
And so, as to your point, they go out there,
they beat A and M at A and M and
it's a gross game, but they get it done right.
(33:05):
And so they go against Ohio State last night and
they I mean, is it unfair to say that Miami
dominated the defending champions in Ohio State? I don't think
it's unfair.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
It absolutely did.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
I think it was a dominant performance by a team
that does have talent. And the biggest question was, okay,
do I just do I really trust Carson Beck to
be the better quarterback in this game? And to his credit,
he absolutely was, which gives you the kind of oh, well,
that's fun. That's not something that I expected. That adds
an interesting and unique wrinkle into this entire process. Why
(33:38):
can't college football have cinderellas that are fun and competitive?
Highly competitive, like jmu is not your Cinderella here, Miami is.
That's an entirely different ballgame when you put it through
that context.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
There is an exact in my mind, NFL comp to
what we're seeing. We have recently seen. Recently, we have
seen an NFL team do exactly what Miami is doing
and we loved every second of it. We'll make that
comp I'll tell you what I'm talking about next. He's
Buck Rising. I'm Jason Fitz. We're getting just getting started
on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Please you're listening.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
To Fox Sports Radio Radio.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
He's Buck Rising. I'm Jason Fitz, Bucking fits, hanging out
with you on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Got plenty of thoughts about Miami upsetting Ohio State and
what it really means for the future college football.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
But first let's get you the play of the day,
the tire rack play of the day coming at you
right now. Stamp give it to did Davison goal? Did
it get in? He is Jordan Davison.
Speaker 7 (34:41):
The ex club mation points on the Orange bole as
Oregon makes it undeniably fair ball game, bable it face
and live to play another day.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Jerry Allen at Learfield on the call, for over forty years,
Tyrack's been helping customers find the right tires for how,
what and where they drive, shipped fast and for red
backed by free Road, has their protection with convenient installation
options like mobile tire installation tirerac dot com. The way
tire buying should be. Miami is showing us the way
playoff runs should be. And this is where some purists
will come in and say, buck, well, college football is
(35:16):
no longer even gonna have the best team be the champion,
And like, what's the point? I would turn around and
ask everybody think back, not that long ago till a
football team.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Named the New York Giants.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
They qualified for the playoff as a wildcard, barely snuck in,
and then went on an improbable playoff run. A team
with a ton of history, a team with Super Bowls
already on their resume, goes on an improbable run and
it ends in a super Bowl where they take on
the undefeated New England Patriots, who had the chance to
make NFL history as absolutely, without question, the single greatest
(35:50):
team you've ever seen an NFL history, And the Giants won,
and everybody freaked out, and everybody dot dot loved it.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Not Patriots fans, but everybody else. That's the biggest part
of it. Everybody else looked at him, said, oh my god,
what an incredible story.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
To me, that's what people miss when they sit here
and say, oh, well, if a team like Miami's a championship,
what's the point.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
In the regular season.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
We actually like it when teams come from oun't nowhere
and go on championship runs.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
I want to know who these people are that are
saying this, because those people do exist, to your point,
I just wonder, like, what is the actual percentage of them,
because is that not the thing that makes us enjoy sports?
Like I don't want to see Tom Brady go undefeated
and just win the championship every year as if he's
on Madden Rookie Mode or something like that. I want
to see him be pushed. I want to see his greatness,
(36:39):
you know, no, maybe not questioned in moments, but I
just want to see him have something that can get
in his way and if he so overcomes it, then great,
and you can make Tom Brady. And Tom Brady already
is the greatest of all time, but not at that
point in time, right. I want to see him have
to struggle a little bit. I don't think people actually
root for the best team to win because they don't
actually like the best team. Don't like the Chiefs, people
(37:01):
don't like the Patriots, people don't like the the I mean,
what's what's the example of the Golden.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
State when Golden State had the best NBA regular season
in history and they lost a championship and everyone's like,
everybody loved that.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Yeah, they're they're you. You don't make these figures likable,
So why do you want them to win all the
time if you're just gonna complain about it after the fact.
I think that And and by the way, the the
we used this word earlier, gravitas, the the impact and
the gravitas of the Giants winning those two Super Bowls.
(37:34):
Maybe Eli Manning doesn't get into the Hall of Fame, right,
Maybe maybe Eli is just gonna be one of these
who's the tackle that's currently been waiting for I mean,
basically since the nineties, Willie Anderson, Like maybe remember rude, I.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
Remember.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
I just mean that Willy Anderson was obviously a great
player at his position, but he's been waiting a long
time because there was a bunch of other people who
became eligible for the Hall of Fame while he was
to get in, and so we get squeezed at this
point in time. And you see this every once in
a while in the Hall of Fame voting. Maybe ELI
doesn't get in, but Eli's best argument for getting in
is that he beat Tom Brady to win his two
Super Bowls even though he wasn't the best quarterback in
(38:12):
his class. Like that carries a tremendous amount of weight.
Why would you begrudge an underdog that opportunity.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
It's weird to me, and it becomes one of the
best stories. It becomes the sitting on the porch story.
Like I say all the time that one of the
things I think are funny about Lebron haters is that
Lebron haters right now, we're gonna sit there and tell
you Lebron's no MJ. Lebron's no MJ. And in thirty
years they'll be sitting there with the grandkids and saying, oh,
that kid playing I watched Lebron right Like, there's this
(38:40):
inevitable chance for that happens at some point. Well, it's
the same when you talk about championship seasons. If Miami
is able to somehow win the college football Championship this
year on a team that everybody thought shouldn't have even
made the playoffs, that people spent weeks saying, oh my god,
how could this happen?
Speaker 3 (38:55):
Right? Like, for Miami to go out and do that.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
That becomes one of the rates championship stories in college
football history. The team that barely snuck into the playoff
and then won all the way through. And by the way,
not only did they win their way through, they upset
everybody at every single level, including the greatest upset in
college football playoff history over the number two team but
Ohio State that was the defending national champion.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Blah blah blah. I mean, this all becomes part of
the Disney movie No.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
And I'm curious to see how people how people are
talking about this. I mean, we're obviously talking about this
because we're on this week and kind of the context
that it's viewed in, because I just I don't understand
the counter argument, Like, what is the counter argument that
you just want to see dominance and excellence the whole
way through? What is even the pushback in this situation.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
The specialness of the college football world is that the
regular season matters so much, and every single game has
mattered so much, over and over and over again. And
now if all you have to do is barely qualify
for the playoffs and you win the championship, what you're
really doing telling everybody that those games in the middle
of October November don't matter. That's the argument I constantly
hear from people. When I have this argument, I just
(40:07):
don't answer.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
True, they all matter, right, If you have these losses,
then you're you're dinged accordingly. I mean, this is the
entire Notre Dame thing.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Well, and last time I checked, no matter how many
losses bad NFL teams have, we still flock to watch
them even when their season is meaningless. So you know,
I think the concept is that the sport dies if
the regular season isn't as important.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
It's just it forgets the growth.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
For everybody that's now watching a regular season they didn't
necessarily think they needed to watch, so all the other
fan bases are equally being fed. He's Buck Rising, I'm
Jason Fitz. We're just getting started. We'll update you on
the Rose Bowl, what's coming next on Fox Sports Radio
Host
Doug Gottlieb
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